Mr Dale grabbed Mr Holmes and grappled him to the floor, while his pet dog first looked on and then appeared to attack his owner.

Mr Dale posted on his blog: "Damian McBride was doing a live interview on Daybreak on the Brighton seafront. I was waiting in my car to drive him to do his next interview with Nick Ferrari on LBC when I noticed that a protester was holding a placard behind Damian which was filling a lot of the screen and totally distracting from the interview.

"I assumed someone from Daybreak would intervene to stop him, but no one did. So I did what any self respecting publisher would do, got out of the car, ran across, got him in an armlock and pulled him out of the shot. He started resisting and we ended up in an unseemly tumble on the ground."